Summary Of The Jungle By Upton Sinclair

INTRO

In the Book, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, we are taught that capitalism is evil and that socialism is the right way. This book is an political fiction that was written in 1906 which was just under 60 years after socialism, the enemy of the capitalism, was created but 11 years before the USSR was created. Due to this no one would know the evils that were to come from socialism. Sinclair uses the book, especially the the first twenty to thirty chapters, to display his thoughts and believes. Those certain believes were that capitalism is inhumane, destructive, unjust and violent.

THE PLOT OF THE JUNGLE

The beginning of the book starts with the marriage of a young man, Jurgis Rudkus, and a young woman, Ona Lukoszaite, from Lithuania. The marriage of the two puts them in major financial debt. Once the men of family finds work they agree upon buying a house but little do they know is that the deal was a swindle.

In Jurgis’ first job, the health standards are extremely low. As I said before in my summary, “ Animals that are diseased were thrown in with the rest, rats constantly run over the meat and eat the meat, and when a human worker would fall into the meat chute, their screams would be ignored and they we packed with the rest of the meat.” If anyone of these things happened in a meat factory, the factory would be shut down and any person high up the imaginary latter would be sued extensively.

Another thing that I learned is that you should never commit to an idea before it is proven. Sinclair dedicates this book to his believe that socialism is a better system of government than capitalism. This book was written in 1906 before the rise of the most notable socialist country, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the USSR. Later this would be proven to be a horrible form of government that wouldn’t benefit the citizens of the